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When was the last time a Toronto team had something like that to brag about?

The Don Mills Flyers, a very unusual minor atom hockey team of 8- and 9-year-old boys, can trace their ties to all 18 cups through family connections.

There's Blake. His dad, Paul Coffey, is the assistant coach for the minor AAA team and a four-time Stanley Cup winner with the Edmonton Oilers.

Over there is George; his granddad is Red Kelly, who won eight Cups with Detroit and Toronto. Then there's Tyson, son of Doug Gilmour, a Cup winner with the Calgary Flames. And Callum; his great uncle Carl Brewer captured three Cups with the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 1960s. And don't forget James, great nephew of former Boston Bruin Don Awrey, whose name is inscribed on Lord Stanley's mug twice.

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"One day I was standing on the ice and said, `Boy, there is a lot of history here,'" said head coach Michael McIntosh, whose son Justin plays defence for the Greater Toronto Hockey League team. "I look at the lineage, but it doesn't mean that I expect more from an individual player. It does mean the families are very enthusiastic."

The coming together of these impressive bloodlines was a mixture of fate and coincidence.

Gilmour already had one son, Jake, playing with the Flyers' minor peewee team, and Tyson was headed to the minor atom squad. The former Maple Leaf captain, who's an assistant coach for Jake's team, asked his friend Paul Coffey if he would be interested in doing some coaching.

Casey Kelly, George's mom and daughter of Red Kelly, picks up the story.

"Callum and George figure skate together and I knew the Gilmours through the Cricket Club," she recalled. "I didn't know they were playing on the team. Once I saw them, it seemed like kismet. It's a small world."

Early returns show a team with promise. It has a 2-1-1 record in a tight division and has scored a league-leading 24 goals. It has been scored on only five times, no doubt a by-product of having a defence corps taught by Coffey, a Hockey Hall of Fame defenceman.

"I think that having an NHL coach is a draw for the kids, absolutely, and should be a draw," says former NHL player Peter Zezel, a mentor coach with the organization this season and himself an alumnus of the Don Mills Flyers.

Zezel's nephew plays with Gilmour's older son as well as the nephew of another former Leaf, Nick Kypreos.

There are a lot of NHL families in the GTHL, but finding one team with as many Stanley Cups in its background would be a challenge.

McIntosh admits a minor hockey coach can be a "little wary" when a proven pro is an assistant, but Coffey's presence on the ice has clearly been a huge plus for the Flyers.

"He's soft-spoken," McIntosh says. "He demonstrates what he wants them to do and I think the most important things is that he makes it about them.

"It's wonderful to have Paul. He's like a kid every time he comes."

After 21 years in the NHL, Coffey retired in 2001 and chose to stay away from the pro scene. He has car dealerships in Bolton and Kitchener and spends as much time as possible with children Savannah, 12, Blake, 9, and Christian, 4.

The Flyers, Coffey says, are "a great group of parents," adding coach McIntosh is a "good father, good coach with his heart in the right place. My philosophy is about teaching these kids for the next five months," says Coffey.

"I want to keep it simple as possible." It's a lesson he learned early, just like these kids.

"Bob Williams coached me as a 9-year-old in tyke with the Mississauga Reps (of the GTHL); he's the most influential minor hockey coach in my life," he said.

"Bob Williams was positive to all the players and I still see him," Coffey said.

"He put me on defence because I could skate well. I hated it. I wanted to be a centre like Dave Keon. Keon was my hero."

But then his dad explained there were nine forwards and only four defence. "I figured I would get more ice time on defence," says Coffey. "Defence is the hardest position to play and the toughest to learn."

Not surprisingly, Coffey has a mission to instill a strong work ethic.

"If I really want my kid to have fun, I take him to the CNE," he says, noting the first 25 minutes of Flyers' practices are for skating drills.

"The harder I work the more fun I have," he said of his theory. "(Wayne) Gretzky worked hardest. The old adage `you practice like you play' is true."

The lessons some kids are learning go back even further than Coffey's era. George, 8, may be the only player on the team with a wooden stick – a pointer picked up from granddad Red, who spent three decades in the NHL and was part of the 1967 Leafs Cup-winning team.

"It has that wood feel, not the same as the newfangled ones," says Kelly, 80. "It is heavier and strengthens the upper body. And it's less dangerous if and when it breaks."

George's mom Casey, an international figure skating judge, says the club is a perfect fit for her son because of the attitude of Flyers' coaches and parents that there is more to life than hockey.

"I've been through this life and I know how few make it," she says. "I want George to learn good sportsmanship, be challenged, learn the game and make friends. Some of the AAA teams are so intense. Some are focused on win win win.

"What's neat about Paul is he is just a guy, not a prima donna.

"This is someone's dad who knows a lot about the sport. He's loves doing it because he loves to give back to the sport."

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